Tony Benn to BBC: "If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself"- then does it!!!
read more | digg story
Showing posts with label humanitarian aid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanitarian aid. Show all posts
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Gaza: Palestinians Devastated by War's Toll
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Douglas Hamilton - GAZA - More Israeli forces left the Gaza Strip on Monday after a 22-day assault on Hamas militants, and both sides kept a ceasefire, allowing dazed Palestinians to survey the destruction and mourn their dead.
In Jabalya refugee camp, the scene of heavy fighting, not a house was unscathed. Huge piles of uncollected garbage rotted on street corners. Children scavenged for empty plastic bottles.
Israel withdrew its forces from built-up parts of coastal Gaza, Israel Radio said. Political sources said Israel would complete its troop pullout by Tuesday, before Barack Obama is sworn in as U.S. president.
Israel was seen by some as interested in having its troops back home by the time Obama takes office to avoid any friction with its closest ally's new leader.
read more digg story
Gaza devastated after onslaught
(01:55) Report
Jan 18 - Gaza residents survey the devastation after Israel declares a unilateral ceasefire
Hundreds of Palestinians remained homeless after Israel levelled homes as they fought Hamas by air, ground and sea.
Bodies were pulled from collapsed buildings as more victims of the final hours of fighting before a unilateral Israeli ceasefire was called were taken to hospital.
Penny Tweedie reports.
In Jabalya refugee camp, the scene of heavy fighting, not a house was unscathed. Huge piles of uncollected garbage rotted on street corners. Children scavenged for empty plastic bottles.
Israel withdrew its forces from built-up parts of coastal Gaza, Israel Radio said. Political sources said Israel would complete its troop pullout by Tuesday, before Barack Obama is sworn in as U.S. president.
Israel was seen by some as interested in having its troops back home by the time Obama takes office to avoid any friction with its closest ally's new leader.
read more digg story
Gaza devastated after onslaught
(01:55) Report
Jan 18 - Gaza residents survey the devastation after Israel declares a unilateral ceasefire
Hundreds of Palestinians remained homeless after Israel levelled homes as they fought Hamas by air, ground and sea.
Bodies were pulled from collapsed buildings as more victims of the final hours of fighting before a unilateral Israeli ceasefire was called were taken to hospital.
Penny Tweedie reports.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Reuters:U.N. Rights Chief Calls for Gaza War Crimes Probe.
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - The top U.N. human rights official called on Friday for independent investigations into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, singled out the killing of 30 Palestinian civilians in a home in central Gaza that was shelled by Israeli forces, and their alleged neglect of young, starving children whose mothers died in the attack.
"I am concerned with violations of international law. Incidents such as this must be investigated because they display elements of what could constitute war crimes," Pillay told Reuters in an interview.
A U.N. aid agency reported on Friday that the 30 Palestinians were killed this week when the Israeli army sheltered 110 civilians in a house in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in central Gaza, later hit by shells.
"It cries out for proper investigation," said Pillay, a former International Criminal Court judge from South Africa.
read more digg story
GENEVA (Reuters) - The top U.N. human rights official called on Friday for independent investigations into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, singled out the killing of 30 Palestinian civilians in a home in central Gaza that was shelled by Israeli forces, and their alleged neglect of young, starving children whose mothers died in the attack.
"I am concerned with violations of international law. Incidents such as this must be investigated because they display elements of what could constitute war crimes," Pillay told Reuters in an interview.
A U.N. aid agency reported on Friday that the 30 Palestinians were killed this week when the Israeli army sheltered 110 civilians in a house in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in central Gaza, later hit by shells.
"It cries out for proper investigation," said Pillay, a former International Criminal Court judge from South Africa.
read more digg story
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Red Cross Accuses Israel of Neglecting Gaza Wounded
By Alan Cowell - PARIS: The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it had discovered "shocking" scenes — including small children next to their mothers' corpses — when its representatives gained access for the first time to parts of Gaza battered by Israeli shelling. It accused Israel of failing to meet obligations to care for the wounded in areas of combat.
In response the Israeli military did not comment directly on the allegation. In a statement, it accused Hamas, its foe in Gaza, of deliberately using "Palestinian civilians as human shields" and said the Israeli Army "works in close cooperation with international aid organizations during the fighting so that civilians can be provided with assistance."
The Israeli military "in no way intentionally targets civilians and has demonstrated its willingness to abort operations to save civilian lives and to risk injury in order to assist innocent civilians," the statement said, promising that "any serious allegation" wouldl "need to be investigated properly, once such a complaint is received formally, within the constraints of the current military operation."
In an unusually blunt criticism , the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it had been seeking access to shell-damaged areas in Zeitoun in the east of Gaza City since Saturday but the Israeli authorities granted permission only on Wednesday — the first day that Israel allowed a three-hour lull in the attacks on Gaza on humanitarian grounds.
The statement said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."
read more digg story
In response the Israeli military did not comment directly on the allegation. In a statement, it accused Hamas, its foe in Gaza, of deliberately using "Palestinian civilians as human shields" and said the Israeli Army "works in close cooperation with international aid organizations during the fighting so that civilians can be provided with assistance."
The Israeli military "in no way intentionally targets civilians and has demonstrated its willingness to abort operations to save civilian lives and to risk injury in order to assist innocent civilians," the statement said, promising that "any serious allegation" wouldl "need to be investigated properly, once such a complaint is received formally, within the constraints of the current military operation."
In an unusually blunt criticism , the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it had been seeking access to shell-damaged areas in Zeitoun in the east of Gaza City since Saturday but the Israeli authorities granted permission only on Wednesday — the first day that Israel allowed a three-hour lull in the attacks on Gaza on humanitarian grounds.
The statement said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."
read more digg story
"Everything You Can Imagine, We Do Not Have": A Q&A with Gaza-Based Journalist Sameh A. Habeeb
By Zahra Hankir, Indypendent - "Today I wanted to go to the market to bring home some food. Thank God, I did not go; there was a massacre from artillery shells."
Twenty-three-year-old Sameh A. Habeeb, a photojournalist based in Gaza City, hardly sleeps. The sounds of the bombings keep him awake.
Habeeb seldom leaves his home for fear of being killed by sporadic bombing, but he has slipped out several times to take pictures and to obtain chilling first hand accounts of daily life ever since the Israeli attacks on Gaza began on Saturday December 27.
During the days, his main priority is to find a place with electricity so he can charge his laptop and connect to the Internet. His goal is to get the word out about what is happening on the ground in Gaza. He works primarily from his phone, calling up a number of sources, from doctors to media contacts to human rights workers.
Habeeb is one of few local journalists in besieged Gaza who are attempting to reach out to international media outlets by way of the Internet and the phone. "I'm not sleeping so you are welcome to call me on this number in the night," says one of his blog notes.
Aware that mainstream media have fallen short of reporting on the crisis, in part because international reporters have been banned from entering Gaza but also due to political biases, he has been issuing daily reports of the situation. The reports can be found on his blog, on his Facebook account and on arabisto.com.
Habeeb was born and raised in Gaza, and has worked in civil society for many years. He has also worked as a journalist at the Ramattan News Agency, a regional media facility based in Gaza. He has offered his journalistic work to various organizations worldwide for free.
The young journalist is currently confined to his home with his three sisters, his two brothers, his parents and his grandmother with barely any food.
During the interview below with the Indypendent, Habeeb speaks from his phone over the sound of persistent bombing that he has grown used to. "Can you hear that one?" he says. Boom. Boom. "That was an F-16 [bomb]. I know how an F-16 sounds. I can distinguish what types of bombs they are."
His voice trembles a little, but he goes on speaking, even after being asked if he would like a moment to collect himself. "You know that I can speak and that I will speak at whatever hour and in whatever situation," he says, resolutely.
It is almost 1 a.m. in occupied Palestine.
Zahra Hankir: What is the current humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza?
Sameh A. Habeeb: If we counted the things that are missing and that we need, we would not finish [this interview]. There is no bread. There is no sugar. There is no gas. There is no fuel. There is no electricity and there is no wood. There is no cement. Everything you can imagine, we do not have. And this was a problem that started with the blockade and that has accentuated since the attacks began. It was preplanned. It is not only a matter of a rocket being fired here and there. It is a strategy that Israel has followed.
As for daily life, and the humanitarian situation, Israel is telling the world that they are not allowing a humanitarian crisis [to unfold] in Gaza. [Israeli foreign minister] Tzipi Livni is a big fool, because she is trying to convince the international community and those working on the Palestinian cause that Israel is helping with the humanitarian situation. But on the ground, she is allowing a big catastrophe to continue. Gaza was in need before the siege. During the siege, Israel was allowing some 40 trucks carrying basic commodities (cans, goods, etc) in. Now, at the time while the war is taking place, they say they are allowing commodities to move in, but they are allowing nothing in! Thirteen trucks with commodities are not enough for a population of a million and a half. They say they opened the crossing, and that everything is okay, but this is a big lie.
Some houses do not have water, as power is needed. Israel has targeted many wells of water in the middle of the Gaza strip, and a well that was in the north. Add to that the coastal authorities were saying that Israel was not allowing them to bring materials to purify water…
Tomorrow, I will be visiting one of the doctors at al-Shifa hospital to investigate the types of weapons that are being used.
As for the medical situation, since the beginning of the siege, around 270 people died because they were not able to leave Gaza for treatment, or were not able to get medicine during the blockade. Medical machines and equipment were also not available, as well as spare parts. Today, there is a very big problem in hospitals because of this. Hospital management has called medical students in their senior, second or third level to help at the hospitals.
ZH: What has been the general attitude of Palestinians in Gaza towards Hamas?
SAH: The main concern for the Palestinian people now is how to find food, how to light candles, how to keep warm. They do not think much about politics. Generally, support for Hamas is still there, and the decisive battle would be proving whether Hamas will have support or not as it still did not [attack] "hot" areas.
ZH: What is your current living situation?
SAH: I live in Gaza City, two kilometers from the Israeli borders. Since the beginning of the blockade, which was imposed 20 months ago, and since the beginning of the war, my life has been turned upside down. There is no gas. No power. No Internet. I charge my laptop by going here and there to get Internet, but generally, there is no fuel, no gasoline, and no oil. In the humanitarian aspect, we do not have anything now. Today I wanted to go to the market to bring home some food. Thank God, I did not go; there was a massacre from artillery shells. Israelis hit the market -- the busiest market in Gaza.
read more digg story
Twenty-three-year-old Sameh A. Habeeb, a photojournalist based in Gaza City, hardly sleeps. The sounds of the bombings keep him awake.
Habeeb seldom leaves his home for fear of being killed by sporadic bombing, but he has slipped out several times to take pictures and to obtain chilling first hand accounts of daily life ever since the Israeli attacks on Gaza began on Saturday December 27.
During the days, his main priority is to find a place with electricity so he can charge his laptop and connect to the Internet. His goal is to get the word out about what is happening on the ground in Gaza. He works primarily from his phone, calling up a number of sources, from doctors to media contacts to human rights workers.
Habeeb is one of few local journalists in besieged Gaza who are attempting to reach out to international media outlets by way of the Internet and the phone. "I'm not sleeping so you are welcome to call me on this number in the night," says one of his blog notes.
Aware that mainstream media have fallen short of reporting on the crisis, in part because international reporters have been banned from entering Gaza but also due to political biases, he has been issuing daily reports of the situation. The reports can be found on his blog, on his Facebook account and on arabisto.com.
Habeeb was born and raised in Gaza, and has worked in civil society for many years. He has also worked as a journalist at the Ramattan News Agency, a regional media facility based in Gaza. He has offered his journalistic work to various organizations worldwide for free.
The young journalist is currently confined to his home with his three sisters, his two brothers, his parents and his grandmother with barely any food.
During the interview below with the Indypendent, Habeeb speaks from his phone over the sound of persistent bombing that he has grown used to. "Can you hear that one?" he says. Boom. Boom. "That was an F-16 [bomb]. I know how an F-16 sounds. I can distinguish what types of bombs they are."
His voice trembles a little, but he goes on speaking, even after being asked if he would like a moment to collect himself. "You know that I can speak and that I will speak at whatever hour and in whatever situation," he says, resolutely.
It is almost 1 a.m. in occupied Palestine.
Zahra Hankir: What is the current humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza?
Sameh A. Habeeb: If we counted the things that are missing and that we need, we would not finish [this interview]. There is no bread. There is no sugar. There is no gas. There is no fuel. There is no electricity and there is no wood. There is no cement. Everything you can imagine, we do not have. And this was a problem that started with the blockade and that has accentuated since the attacks began. It was preplanned. It is not only a matter of a rocket being fired here and there. It is a strategy that Israel has followed.
As for daily life, and the humanitarian situation, Israel is telling the world that they are not allowing a humanitarian crisis [to unfold] in Gaza. [Israeli foreign minister] Tzipi Livni is a big fool, because she is trying to convince the international community and those working on the Palestinian cause that Israel is helping with the humanitarian situation. But on the ground, she is allowing a big catastrophe to continue. Gaza was in need before the siege. During the siege, Israel was allowing some 40 trucks carrying basic commodities (cans, goods, etc) in. Now, at the time while the war is taking place, they say they are allowing commodities to move in, but they are allowing nothing in! Thirteen trucks with commodities are not enough for a population of a million and a half. They say they opened the crossing, and that everything is okay, but this is a big lie.
Some houses do not have water, as power is needed. Israel has targeted many wells of water in the middle of the Gaza strip, and a well that was in the north. Add to that the coastal authorities were saying that Israel was not allowing them to bring materials to purify water…
Tomorrow, I will be visiting one of the doctors at al-Shifa hospital to investigate the types of weapons that are being used.
As for the medical situation, since the beginning of the siege, around 270 people died because they were not able to leave Gaza for treatment, or were not able to get medicine during the blockade. Medical machines and equipment were also not available, as well as spare parts. Today, there is a very big problem in hospitals because of this. Hospital management has called medical students in their senior, second or third level to help at the hospitals.
ZH: What has been the general attitude of Palestinians in Gaza towards Hamas?
SAH: The main concern for the Palestinian people now is how to find food, how to light candles, how to keep warm. They do not think much about politics. Generally, support for Hamas is still there, and the decisive battle would be proving whether Hamas will have support or not as it still did not [attack] "hot" areas.
ZH: What is your current living situation?
SAH: I live in Gaza City, two kilometers from the Israeli borders. Since the beginning of the blockade, which was imposed 20 months ago, and since the beginning of the war, my life has been turned upside down. There is no gas. No power. No Internet. I charge my laptop by going here and there to get Internet, but generally, there is no fuel, no gasoline, and no oil. In the humanitarian aspect, we do not have anything now. Today I wanted to go to the market to bring home some food. Thank God, I did not go; there was a massacre from artillery shells. Israelis hit the market -- the busiest market in Gaza.
read more digg story
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Israel Halts Attack Briefly to Allow Aid Into Gaza
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
GAZA — Israel pressed on with its 12-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday , but it allowed a brief suspension to permit humanitarian aid to reach the beleaguered population and agreed to future brief halts, while the Israeli security cabinet postponed a vote authorizing a further stage of the ground operation.
The day after Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a United Nations school in Gaza, diplomatic efforts to bring the fighting to a halt intensified. France and Egypt and Turkey were working on a plan that would work to halt rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, open up crossings into Gaza from both Israel and Egypt, and end weapons smuggling from Egypt. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said the cease-fire plan had been agreed on, but Israel and Hamas both said that there were many details to be worked out. Israel was due to send officials to Cairo for further discussions.
The death toll in Gaza reached around 660 on Wednesday, according to Palestinian health officials. The United Nations has estimated that about one-fourth of those dying in Gaza are civilians, but there is little certainty about the current figures.
Israel has said repeatedly that it will not end the operation in Gaza until it is assured that Hamas will stop firing rockets into Israel and that arms smuggling will halt. The Israeli military reported on Wednesday that a rocket fired from Gaza landed in a yard in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and nine people were treated for shock. Three other rockets landed elsewhere.
The Israeli military contended that it fired on the school on Tuesday because Hamas fighters had fired mortars from the school compound. United Nations officials have called for an independent inquiry into the episode.
While the guns fell silent for several hours on Wednesday, news reports from the Israel-Gaza border area said a string of explosions was soon heard after the three-hour lull ended. Israel said the three-hour lull would be repeated every other day between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to allow Gaza’s population to seek medical help, buy food and receive humanitarian supplies.
In Paris, Mr. Sarkozy, who toured the region earlier this week in a diplomatic drive for a cease-fire, issued a statement welcoming what he called “the acceptance by Israel and the Palestinian Authority” of a cease-fire plan put forward Tuesday evening by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Mr. Sarkozy said he was urging the implementation of the plan “as soon as possible for the suffering of the population to stop.”
But the status of the proposal was far from clear and some Palestinians remained skeptical. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, told the BBC that the plan fell short of a cease-fire. “Israel is still buying time to create facts on the ground,” she said.
According to Reuters, Mark Regev, the spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “We welcome the French-Egyptian initiative. We want to see it succeed.
read more digg story
GAZA — Israel pressed on with its 12-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday , but it allowed a brief suspension to permit humanitarian aid to reach the beleaguered population and agreed to future brief halts, while the Israeli security cabinet postponed a vote authorizing a further stage of the ground operation.
The day after Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a United Nations school in Gaza, diplomatic efforts to bring the fighting to a halt intensified. France and Egypt and Turkey were working on a plan that would work to halt rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, open up crossings into Gaza from both Israel and Egypt, and end weapons smuggling from Egypt. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said the cease-fire plan had been agreed on, but Israel and Hamas both said that there were many details to be worked out. Israel was due to send officials to Cairo for further discussions.
The death toll in Gaza reached around 660 on Wednesday, according to Palestinian health officials. The United Nations has estimated that about one-fourth of those dying in Gaza are civilians, but there is little certainty about the current figures.
Israel has said repeatedly that it will not end the operation in Gaza until it is assured that Hamas will stop firing rockets into Israel and that arms smuggling will halt. The Israeli military reported on Wednesday that a rocket fired from Gaza landed in a yard in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and nine people were treated for shock. Three other rockets landed elsewhere.
The Israeli military contended that it fired on the school on Tuesday because Hamas fighters had fired mortars from the school compound. United Nations officials have called for an independent inquiry into the episode.
While the guns fell silent for several hours on Wednesday, news reports from the Israel-Gaza border area said a string of explosions was soon heard after the three-hour lull ended. Israel said the three-hour lull would be repeated every other day between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to allow Gaza’s population to seek medical help, buy food and receive humanitarian supplies.
In Paris, Mr. Sarkozy, who toured the region earlier this week in a diplomatic drive for a cease-fire, issued a statement welcoming what he called “the acceptance by Israel and the Palestinian Authority” of a cease-fire plan put forward Tuesday evening by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Mr. Sarkozy said he was urging the implementation of the plan “as soon as possible for the suffering of the population to stop.”
But the status of the proposal was far from clear and some Palestinians remained skeptical. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, told the BBC that the plan fell short of a cease-fire. “Israel is still buying time to create facts on the ground,” she said.
According to Reuters, Mark Regev, the spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “We welcome the French-Egyptian initiative. We want to see it succeed.
read more digg story
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)